This book brings together public services policy and public services management in a novel way that is likely to resonate with academics, policy makers and practitioners engaged in the organization of public services delivery as it is from a perspective that challenges many received ideas in this field.

Introduction: Making Public Services Management Critical. Graeme Currie & Mark Learmonth. Section I: Rethinking the Background. 1. From Collective Struggle to Customer Service: The Story of How Self Help and Mutual Aid Led to the Welfare State and Became Co-Opted in Market Managerialism. Patrick Reedy. 2. Toward Unprincipled Public Service: Critical Ideology, the Fetish of Capitalism, and Some Thoughts on the Future of Governance. Frank E. Scott. 3. Sheep in Wolf's Clothing: Schools, Managerialism, and Altering Ideologies. Patricia A.L. Ehrensal. 4. Public Sector Management? But We're Academics, We Don't Do That Sort of Thing!. Michael Humphreys and Mark Learmonth. Section II: Critique of Mainstream Orthodoxy. 5. The Inevitability of Professions?. Robert Dingwall. 6. Critical Risk Management: Moral Entrepreneurship in the Management of Patient Safety. Justin Waring. 7. Public Participation in State Governance from a Social-Theoretical Perspective. Graham P. Martin. 8. Marketing the Unmarketable: The Vlaams Belang, a 'Party Unlike Any Other'. Mona Moufahim, Michael Humphreys and Darryn Mittusis. 9. A Critical Realist Analysis of Institutional Change in the Field of Us Nursing Homes. Martin Kitchener & Bernard Leca. Section III: Radical Alternatives. 10. Critical Leadership Theorising and Local Government Practice. Jackie Ford. 11. Individual Patient Choice in the English National Health Service: The Case for Social Fantasy Seen from Psychoanalytic Perspective. Marianna Fotaki. 12. From Metaphor to Reality: A Critical View of Prisons. Finola Farrant. 13. Queer(y)ing Voluntary Sector Services: An Example from Health Promotion. Nancy Harding and Hugh Lee. 14. The Contribution of Existential Thinking to Public Services Management. John Lawler. 15. Adding Value to Critical Public Services Management. Craig Prichard. Conclusion: What is to be done? On the Merits of Micro-Revolutions. Jackie Ford and Nancy Harding. About the Contributors. Notes. Index.